Contact

January 10, 2011

Anti-Second Amendment Extremists Exploit Tucson Shootings

Posted by Dave Blount at January 10, 2011 9:05 AM

Sadly, anti-Second Amendment crusaders didn't wait for the bodies to cool before cashing in on the tragedy in Tucson.

One of the fiercest gun-control advocates in Congress, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), pounced on the shooting massacre in Tucson Sunday, promising to introduce legislation as soon as Monday targeting the high-capacity ammunition the gunman used. …

Many said that people with a history of mental instability, like the alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, should not be able to buy a gun — and no one should be able to buy stockpiles of ammunition used by the 22-year-old assailant.

This is called passing from the acceptable to the dubious. Keeping guns away from violent lunatics is a great idea, so long as it can be done without trampling on the rights of the rest of us. Preventing normal Americans from storing ammunition is pure and simple tyranny. Only with the public whipped up in a highly emotional state would extremists stand the slightest chance of pushing through such an outrage, which is why McCarthy is acting so fast.

Regrettably she isn't the only opportunist:

Another vocal supporter for gun control, Illinois Rep. Mike Quigley, told POLITICO that he hopes "something good" can come from the Arizona tragedy — perhaps discussion on a new assault weapon ban, sales at gun shows and tracing measures.

As always, the New York Times is providing propaganda support for statist authoritarians. An excruciatingly moronic editorial by Gail Collins begins like this:

In 2009, Gabrielle Giffords was holding a "Congress on Your Corner" meeting at a Safeway supermarket in her district when a protester, who was waving a sign that said "Don't Tread on Me," waved a little too strenuously. The pistol he was carrying under his armpit fell out of his holster.

"It bounced. That concerned me," Rudy Ruiz, the father of one of Giffords's college interns at the time, told me then. He had been at the event and had gotten a larger vision than he had anticipated of what a career in politics entailed. "I just thought, 'What would happen if it had gone off? Could my daughter have gotten hurt?' "

This is like fretting that a truck might accidently start driving by itself and run someone over. You can drop a Glock all day; it won't go off until you pull the trigger. But all a NY Slimes columnist knows about firearms is that lawful citizens shouldn't have them. The unsubtle attempt to associate Loughner with the Tea Party despite any evidence or likelihood of a connection is contemptible, but to be expected from the erstwhile "Paper of Record."

Collins goes on to accuse the NRA of being motivated by capitalism. What more can you expect of this sad Marxist remnant of a newspaper?